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With Apple vowing to resist the FBI’s demands for an iPhone backdoor in the San Bernardino case all the way to the Supreme Court, many people assume the company is motivated purely out of principle and concern for their customers.No doubt these are key reasons for Apple’s stand, and I have great admiration for Tim Cook’s leadership on this matter.At the same time, it’s important to recognize another motivation at play. It’s one that Apple and the other tech giants supporting Cook against the FBI all share but, for understandable reasons, cannot discuss in public. Unfortunately, their silence on this...

New York—Amazon has confirmed it removed the ability to encrypt locally stored data on its Fire tablets, saying that customers weren't using the service. The change comes as Apple squares off against the FBI over access to an encrypted iPhone. Apple says giving the government access would make all other iPhones more vulnerable to hacks. But the encryption that Amazon has removed is somewhat different than the security involved in the Apple case. And Amazon made the change well before the brouhaha started. Amazon made the switch when it introduced its new Fire OS 5 in September with new Fire...

John McAfee, the anti-virus program pioneer and gadfly U.S. presidential candidate, claimed that unlocking the Apple iPhone of Syed Farook, one of the shooters who carried out a deadly attack in San Bernardino, California, late last year, is a “trivial” exercise and explained how it should take the FBI just 30 minutes to complete it. McAfee, who is among 12 candidates vying for the Libertarian Party nomination to run for president this year, spoke to Russia Today about the continuing debate over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple Inc. to unlock the iPhone 5C used by the terrorist by creating...

France will consider a law that would impose fines of €1 million on Apple and Google if they refused to hack into smartphones belonging to terrorists. On Monday, French Socialist MP Yann Galut proposed an amendment to French law that - if passed - would see the US companies punished if they didn't give French officials backdoor access to terrorists' phones. In France last year, there were eight phones that were inaccessible to police - all tied in some way to terror attacks, reports Le Parisien. Galut said on Monday that companies like Apple and Google should be fined up...

The U.S. government cannot force Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to unlock an iPhone in a New York drug case, a federal judge in Brooklyn said on Monday, a ruling that bolsters the company's arguments in its landmark legal showdown with the Justice Department over encryption and privacy. The government sought access to the phone in the Brooklyn case in October, months before a judge in California ordered Apple to take special measures to give the government access to the phone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, California, attacks. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in Brooklyn ruled that...

A federal judge in Brooklyn has ruled that the government can't force Apple to help break an iPhone's passcode security. No, it's not the San Bernardino shooting case, a similar situation where the FBI is seeking to compel Apple to provide custom software to help it access data on a criminal's iPhone...

Tomorrow, Apple will make its case before Congress, as General Counsel Bruce Sewell gives testimony to the House Judiciary Committee at 1PM ET. It's Apple's first appearance before Congress since the company received an order to break security measures on a phone linked to the San Bernardino attacks, and Sewell may be facing a skeptical crowd. He'll be joined by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who has been an outspoken critic of the company's encryption policies, as well as a number of House representatives who have been vocal supporters of the FBI's position in the past. FBI Director James Comey...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Apple Inc. on Thursday asked a federal magistrate to reverse her order that the company help the FBI hack into a locked iPhone, accusing the federal government of seeking "dangerous power" through the courts and of trampling on its constitutional rights. The filing represents Apple's first official response since the judge's order last week and builds upon arguments voiced by the company's chief executive and supporters. It marks the latest salvo in a court fight that could create meaningful precedent and establish new legal boundaries in the policy battle between national security and digital privacy — a...

I'm shocked that so many Americans are ignorantly willing to empower this federal government to create a master key to our smartphones. The majority of Americans in a Pew Research poll said they agree with the government that Apple should unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist-shooter (Syed Rizwan Farook). My theory on this is that most people have no idea what the actual question is or what is involved in unlocking this phone. The Pew question is "Should Apple unlock the terrorist's iPhone?" Here's what the question should be: "Do you think Apple should be forced to create...

Wired article LINK ONLY due to copyright restriction argues that the issue is not just about privacy versus safety and security. It makes the point that unlike what the FBI and DOJ are demanding, and the compromise their supporters are seeking, a back door into devices, that for the computer and mobile device security side to really work, it has to be absolute or it isn't security at all. The Apple-FBI Fight Isn't About Privacy vs. Security. Don't Be Misled (LINK ONLY Due to Copyright limitations)

President Barack Obama signed legislation Wednesday that would extend some U.S. privacy protections to citizens of allied countries and let foreigners sue the U.S. government if their personal data is unlawfully disclosed.In a separate ceremony just a few minutes later, Obama signed into law a bill that beefs up trade enforcement and includes a ban on Internet access taxes. Obama said both bills had bipartisan support. The bill extending certain privacy protections was aimed at shoring up trust among European allies following leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Obama said the new law makes sure data is...

The Justice Department is pursuing court orders to force Apple Inc. to help investigators extract data from iPhones in about a dozen undisclosed cases around the country, in disputes similar to the current battle over a terrorist's locked phone, according to people familiar with the matter. The other phones are at issue in cases where prosecutors have sought, as in the San Bernardino, Calif. terror case, to use an 18th-century law called the All Writs Act to compel the company to help them bypass the passcode security feature of phones that may hold evidence, these people said. Privacy advocates are...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Folks, on this Apple and the Department of Justice and the FBI. Do you believe how big this has gotten? You know, people make fun of me both here at the EIB Network and in my personal life. They make fun of me over my passion for these devices, which is okay. People have made fun of me my whole life. They made fun of the fact that I really like Apple. They made fun of the fact that I'm an expert in these things. I've had people over the weekend sending me questions, comments, about this...

I have been keeping tabs on this whole “Feds order Apple to compromise their security features” thing. I don’t think it’s a security problem, a crime problem, or a privacy problem. It’s Government problem. They say that it’s fighting “terrorism”, an entirely different class of crime. It seems to me that it has little or nothing to do with terrorism, just setting precedent allowing the Government (yours and mine) to force people to do things. In this case it’s about making Apple write new software that can assist them in breaking into a darn near perfectly secure device. The claim...

Apple has posted an open letter to customers: “Answers to your questions about Apple and security.” Here it is, verbatim:Why is Apple objecting to the government's order?The government asked a court to order Apple to create a unique version of iOS that would bypass security protections on the iPhone Lock screen. It would also add a completely new capability so that passcode tries could be entered electronically.This has two important and dangerous implications:First, the government would have us write an entirely new operating system for their use. They are asking Apple to remove security features and add a new ability...

I view Apple with almost as much loathing as I save for overzealous federal prosecutors. My last Apple phone was a lemon. The "Genius Bar" isn't. When I hear Apple extol its vaunted regard for privacy, I think of all the invasive personal questions my iPhone used to ask before I could download a free app. That was before I switched to Android. Liberated from 1 Infinite Loop -- that's is Apple headquarters' precious Cupertino street address -- I am free of owners' cultish reverence for all things iPhone. So when I began reading CEO Tim Cook's open letter outlining...

Apple has now responded to a Department of Justice filing that we reported earlier today was attempting to force the company to comply with an FBI request for access to a locked iPhone belonging to a suspect in the San Bernardino attacks. In one statement to Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said the DOJ is "disregarding civil liberties in iPhone unlocking case," while in another it attempts to explain more of the back story regarding past events with the iPhone in question. CNBC reports an Apple exec called the motion "a way to argue the case twice before Apple can respond," a response...

Donald Trump on Friday urged a roomful of voters to boycott the tech giant Apple so long as its chief executive, Tim Cook, refuses to comply with a court order to assist the FBI with hacking into the cell phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. "First of all Apple better give the security for that phone," the Republican presidential hopeful said during a campaign rally in Pawleys Island, S.C. "What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time they give that security number. How do you like that?" "I just thought of it," Trump noted,...

Everyone is losing their mind over Apple being forced to help the FBI unlock an iPhone. Just what is going on? Relax, don't spill your almond milk latte. We'll make it crystal clear for you.

A 2015 court case shows that the tech giant has been willing to play ball with the government before—and is only stopping now because it might ‘tarnish the Apple brand.’ Apple CEO Tim Cook declared on Wednesday that his company wouldn’t comply with a government search warrant to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers, a significant escalation in a long-running debate between technology companies and the government over access to people’s electronically-stored private information. But in a similar case in New York last year, Apple acknowledged that it could extract such data if it wanted...